This article attempts to analyse the socio-economic characteristics of slums across wards of select million plus municipal corporations. Ahmadabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Greater Mumbai, Indore, Lucknow and Patna Municipal Corporations have been selected for the study. Two set of indicators have been generated at the ward level; one for slums located inward and other forward itself. Further, inter-linkages among various socio-economic indicators have been analysed at the ward level. The results of the analysis reveal some important socio-economic characteristics of slums at the ward level of selected million plus municipal corporations, e.g. whether socio-economic condition of slum dwellers living in wards having high concentration of slum population is better than that of slum dwellers living in wards having low concentration of slum population, whether scheduled caste population is high or low in slums having comparatively well socio-economic condition etc. The same analysis has been done for the million plus municipal corporations before the ward level exercise. The relative deprivation of slum dwellers vis-à-vis other urban dwellers at the all India level and million plus city level has been assessed. Further, an attempt has been made to inquire into the relative deprivation among slum dwellers across the million plus municipal corporations.
Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have emerged as a key strategic option as India seeks to overcome its burgeoning infrastructure gap. The presence of an enabling environment for PPPs at the state and urban levels is vital for their success. Through a review of the literature and discussions with experts in the area of PPPs, this paper identifies and validates the key elements of an enabling institutional environment for PPPs. These elements are then weighted and aggregated to develop an index that defines the strength or readiness of a given institutional environment to sustain and support private investment in infrastructure. A scientific technique known as the 'Analytical Hierarchy Process' (AHP) is applied for this purpose. We then apply this index to rank selected Indian states in the order of their readiness towards implementing PPPs. This exercise demonstrates the applicability of the index and we discuss how governments at both urban and state levels can use this index to benchmark and improve their institutional environments for the successful enactment of PPPs.